


i know you're digging my fabric

by Spring_Emerald



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bad Flirting, M/M, Ushijima is hopeless but Shiratorizawa VBC to the rescue, lame volleyball pick up lines, or are they???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 10:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11576403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spring_Emerald/pseuds/Spring_Emerald
Summary: Semi’s definition of creative did not include the use of pick-up lines.But as their luck would have it, they are extremely helpless at the moment and the rest of the team thinks it’s the best way Ushijima could woo Moniwa-san. And he has already voiced out his hesitance and objection, but what power does he have over enthusiastic boys that held tightly to the only thing they think that would work?





	i know you're digging my fabric

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this: _Please imagine Ushijima Wakatoshi using pick up lines on one unsuspecting Moniwa Kaname, because apparently, using pick up lines is the best method Shiratorizawa regulars are able to suggest when wooing someone you like._
> 
> Title came from Zayn's "Still Got Time"
> 
> Enjoy! :D

It was seeing Ushijima sigh for the nth time that day that forced Semi to pull Tendou to a more secluded part of the gym.

“What happened?” He demands, not even giving Tendou the chance to catch his breath at being promptly pulled away from his blocking practice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m sure I ain’t the one that did whatever happened,” Tendou says, an alarmed expression on his face with clear innocence in his eyes and arms raised in honest surrender.

Semi rolls his eyes and crosses his arms as he tilts his head to their captain’s direction “With Ushijima”. He leans closer to Tendou and asks in a hushed voice, “What happened to him? Is there something wrong with him or something?”

Tendou blinks, then looks at Ushijima and studies him. “I don’t see anything wrong with him,” he looks back at Semi.

Semi raises an eyebrow at him in disbelief. “He has been sighing a lot. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that?”

Tendou slowly raised an arm and mildly scratch on the side of his neck. “Well, now that you’ve mentioned it, I did. But I thought he was just dissatisfied about something related to practice. I mean, he’s prone to doing that.”

“I know he does that, but he would’ve said something about it by now. But he hasn’t said anything, and the underclassmen are getting restless.” Semi’s eyebrows knit in part-suspicion and part-worry. “Are you sure you don’t know anything?”

Tendou shakes his head. “I’m as clueless as you are this time. Well, I can always ask him.” Semi grabs unto Tendou’s wrist just as he turns around and skip to where Ushijima was resting. Tendou casts him a questioning look.

“Not now,” says Semi, letting go of Tendou. “Later, after practice. I want to know what’s going on too.”

 ----------

Semi looks around the locker room, making sure that most of the members have already left, save for the third years and the regular underclassmen. He hasn’t mentioned anything to them; only asked Tendou, and Reon –who’s also concerned and had been planning to do the same as him– but they are more or less attuned to Ushijima’s moods that they picked up on this unusual behavior. They had probably felt that their senpais are going to do something about it and are also curious as to what is happening to their captain. He lets it slide, and purposely catches Reon’s eyes instead, and they give each other a small nod.

“Ushijima,” Reon starts softly, placing a hand on Ushijima’s shoulder. Ushijima hums in response, looking up at Reon’s concerned face. “Is there something bothering you?”

The room descended into silence and complete stillness, as everyone held their breaths in anticipation of Ushijima’s answer.

“There is nothing bothering me,” he says finally, devoid of any inflection that would suggest otherwise.

“…If you say so,” Reon says after a moment, nodding his head in acceptance of Ushijima’s answer. “But if there is something bothering you, then, I’m willing to listen.” He gives Ushijima an encouraging smile and friendly pat on his shoulder, before he turns to his own locker.

They all thought they’re going home disappointed and unsatisfied, until…

“Actually… do you have an idea how to court someone?”

 ----------

Semi almost lost his composure. Almost.

Thank heavens for Goshiki, who became the collective voice of the team (yes, even Tendou, because he was rendered speechless by the sheer question), when he screeched an eloquent ‘ _Whaaaat?!_ ’ that got Shirabu slamming the door of his locker shut in surprise, making all of them jump -the loud clang it made still echoing inside their ears.

Ushijima, as usual, wasn’t even slightly perturbed; not by outburst, nor by the fact that he’d just been made aware that his kouhais were actually listening. He calmly turns to Goshiki, a small frown in his face. “I said, do you have an idea–”

“No, no, no, no, no…” Tendou waves his hands hastily as he cuts Ushijima off, making him frown even more.

“We heard what you said, Wakatoshi, no need to repeat it. We were just shocked because we thought that it’s going to be about good old volleyball stuff, but it turns out that you actually need some relationship advice. Our Wakatsohi-kun is growing up!” He gushes as he sits down beside Ushijima and heavily drapes an arm across Ushijima’s shoulders.

“So, spill! Who is it? One of our classmates? Do we know them? Do they–”

“Tendou,” Reon says, “please let Ushijima answer.”

“Ahhh, right, right… Sorry.” They all look at Ushijima expectantly.

Ushijima adopted a sort of confused expression, like the face that someone makes when they’re feeling something, but is having difficulty expressing it verbally. “I have taken an interest in Moniwa-san, the captain of Datekougyou. I am unsure about how I should proceed with letting him know of my… intentions.”

It was his turn to look at them expectantly. Or at least how expectant he could appear. It might not have been in seen in his face, but the way he angled his body slightly forward, and the serious glint in his eyes is telling of his hopefulness and sincerity.

Reon stares at him for a while, before he meets Semi’s eyes again. Semi then, sweeps his gaze around their little band of teammates. Mostly were just wearing a dumbstruck expression on their faces, with the exception of every indifferent Kawanishi and ever confused Goshiki.

Semi doesn’t have an idea of how useful they’ll be when it comes to these kinds of things.

Not all of them has any experience in dealing with relationships of romantic nature, as all had been too busy with volleyball and academics (he hopes). How could they even help Ushijima, when they’re all helpless when it comes to it themselves?

He meets Reon’s eyes again and mentally sends the message that says they have to be creative about this one.

\---------- 

Semi’s definition of creative did not include the use of pick-up lines.

But as their luck would have it, they are extremely helpless at the moment and the rest of the team thinks it’s the best way Ushijima could woo Moniwa-san. And he has already voiced out his hesitance and objection, but what power does he have over enthusiastic boys that held tightly to the only thing they think that would work? It’s not helping that they have Tendou as their champion of this strategy.

“Okay, okay, okay. Wakatoshi, you go up to him and then you ask him to feel your shirt, yeah? And then, while he’s holding it, ask him ‘ _Do you know what this is made of?_ ’ Then he’ll take a guess, right? Or probably ask you back with a ‘what’, right? But remember, no matter his reply, your answer should always be ‘ _boyfriend material_ ’.”

Ushijima looks down on his shirt, and true enough, feels the material of it. “But this is cotton,” he says with a small, confused frown when he looks at them again.

Tendou smile falls a little and trails off with an awkward laugh that he punctuated with a deep sigh. Semi raises a hand and is so close to smacking his forehead but decides to pinch the bridge of his nose instead, while Yamagata drops his head on his locker in resignation. Kawanishi’s eyes widened, while Shirabu’s eyebrows twitch in slight annoyance, and is already imagining smacking Ushijima upside the head. Goshiki –bless his soul– was gaping at Ushijima, like he couldn’t believe his senpai, _his captain_ , could be this clueless. Even _he_ knows what this was about.

Only Reon was able to maintain his expression, in that he hasn’t lost his understanding smile.

“We’ve got a long way to go.”

\---------- 

They have grossly underestimated Ushijima’s ability to give each pick-up line they suggested the perfect comeback without even meaning to, that at the end, they settled for using volleyball terms, and teaching Ushijima what it means in the context of using it in a pick-up line. Despite the repeated cringing of Semi and Shirabu, they both stuck with the team until they have given Ushijima sufficient number of pick-up lines that he could probably use on Moniwa.

It wasn’t exactly the best option, and Reon would agree that they are actually lame, but it’s the only ones that Ushijima hadn’t bothered correcting, especially since it still involved volleyball (no matter how completely unrelated it had become).

They just didn’t think that they’ll be around to actually witness Ushijima use it.

 ----------

Expectedly, they meet the team of Datekou at the Shiratorizawa gymnasium, when they arrived for the scheduled practice match that day. Also expectedly, Ushijima didn’t waste any time asking Moniwa-san if he can talk to him about something. Semi is all ready to usher the rest of his teammates away from Ushijima and Moniwa, in the pretense of ordering them to start their warm ups on the other side of the gym. But even before Moniwa-san replies, the tall, white-haired middle blocker stands closer to him and hovered protectively at his captain. His other teammate, a blond one, steps up to his other side, and scowls up at Ushijima.

“You can say whatever it is that you wanna tell him here. He isn’t goin’ anywhere with ya,” He crosses his arms and looks at Ushijima daringly.

“Kamasaki!” Moniwa turns to him, the way he said the name was heavy with a reprimanding tone.

“What? We ain’t leaving you with him.” The white haired member grunts in agreement with this.

“Not you too, Aone,” Moniwa says, turning from Kamasaki to Aone, with a deeper frown.

Semi glowers at the blond Datekou player before he looks at Ushijima. Surely, Ushijima would wait for a more opportune time, possibly later, after the practice match.

“Alright,” Ushijima replies with a shrug even before Semi can say anything.

He makes a pained expression at Ushijima that he does not see. There’s no way now that they would leave him, especially if the other team’s members would also be staying. He sees Tendou’s maniacal smile on his peripheral vision and resisted the urge to groan. He casts a helpless look at Reon and braces himself.

“Moniwa-san,” Ushijima starts seriously. Moniwa startles at being address, but immediately stands straight and faces Ushijima. “If I _serve_ you my love, will you _receive_ it?” He says looking all intense.

It took a while for it to register, and once it did, Moniwa’s eyes widens and his mouth falls open, his face washed with warmth and is steadily reddening.

“…W-Wh-What?” He manages to choke out.

“My heart rate _spikes_ whenever I see you,” Ushijima continues earnestly. Moniwa swallows hard and gapes, then frantically seeks the eyes of the rest of Shiratorizawa members, seemingly asking for help or explanation, but they too were not in the right state of helping.

Semi is dragging a hand across his face, while Tendou is snickering softly, nodding his head enthusiastically at Ushijima. Shirabu groans somewhere from the back, while Reon -bless him, his face is frozen at that perpetual smile, but is already dying inside.

All the members of Datekou are wearing floored expressions and looking at Ushijima as if he came from another universe. It’s completely comical and Semi would have found it funny and probably laughed at it, if he wasn’t suffering from severe second-hand embarrassment. It’s worse because he knows Ushijima isn’t finished.

“U-U-Ushijima-s-san, wh-what-”

Ushijima leans closer to Moniwa and gazes into his eyes. “Moniwa-san, I _dig_ you. Can I be the _ace_ of your heart?”

Moniwa covers his face with the back of his hand. He seriously thinks that he will spontaneously combust, and feels like his head will explode with how much heat is gathering in his face. He’s breathing quickly in time with the rhythm of his heart hammering in his chest.

Ushijima, unaware that he has caused Moniwa’s brain to short-circuit, slightly frowns with worry at the lack of reply.

“Moniwa-san _f_ –”

Moniwa hastily covers Ushijima’s lips with his hands, preventing him from saying anything more. Ushijima just blinks down at him.

“Ushijima-san, _please_. Say no more…” Moniwa pleads, eyes wide and glistening, unaware of the adorable he looks at that moment. Ushijima nods, the high points on his cheeks are turning pink.

Moniwa slowly takes his hands off Ushijima’s lips, but then grabs him by the arm and pulls him away from the prying eyes of their respective teammates. The members of both teams can only watch as both their captains walk out of the gym, all of them sporting unbelieving expressions on their faces.

All, except Tendou, who is wearing a triumphant smile. “Well, that went well~”

**Author's Note:**

> I had fun writing this, and I hope you had fun reading it as well. 
> 
> Thank you so much! Kudos and comments are very much appreciated. ;)


End file.
